The Marriage unties the 'games as art' argument
by John Bardinelli 
{ Mar 20th 2007 at 7:02AM }
Rod Humble, former Sony Online Entertainment employee currently working for EA, has just released an experimental artgame called The Marriage. There's no sound, no music, and the graphics could have been drawn in MS Paint in less than two minutes. But all of that doesn't matter. What really counts is you, the player, and how you interpret the relationships within the game.It may sound pretentious (Rod is the first one to admit it), but it works extremely well. The best way to understand the game is to download it (Windows only) and start playing. You'll be confused at first, possibly even bored, and some may experience extreme fits of rage. But keep experimenting and try to pry into the game's mechanics. After you get a feel for it, go back to Rod's website and read his explanation. Everything will become clear and you'll understand why The Marriage grabbed your attention in the first place.
Like any good movie or book, half the fun is discussing it with your friends afterwards. After we played it, The Marriage spawned a number of interesting conversations about interactivity, games, art, and even one or two discussions about corn on the cob.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
NoHitHair @ Mar 20th 2007 8:02AM
Early April Fool's joke?
You got me. I actually bought into your enthusiasm and played it for more than 5 minutes. The game itself wouldn't necessarily be pretentious but given the creator's comments it's hard not to roll one's eyes at this "contemporary" art.
Once again I have to remind myself: if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...
http://blog.myspace.com/nohithair
Dan @ Mar 20th 2007 8:14AM
Happy 20th of march!!!! ... Oh wait, that's not the 1st day of april. Now who're the fools?
rob @ Mar 20th 2007 8:38AM
I thought it was cool. As a game, there isn't much there, but as a form of expression using game as a medium it works. It's good to see professional game designers (working for EA no less!) exploring this kind of terrain. If more of them did, I'm sure we'd be seeing a lot more Icos and Shadow of the Colossuses.
Je2037 @ Mar 20th 2007 9:42AM
Easy to pick up, hard to master and addictive as hell are the three best traits any game can have.
AssemblyLineHuman @ Mar 20th 2007 9:57AM
Wow, I expected it to be really dull, but it was actually fun.
MattIsWaldo @ Mar 20th 2007 11:36AM
Simple and interesting. I tried it a few times then read his explanation. As the artist it is up to him to explain his creation, but as the consumer we can also create an explanation that may be superior to the artists reason for creating.
At least it's not a cookie cutter attempt at creativity.
Shagittarius @ Mar 20th 2007 11:46AM
Rob explains that he started thinking about this game a few years ago in his explanation which may be true as far as his games as art experiment goes. However, I remember having a conversation with him over drinks 12 years ago in Vesuvio's in San Fransisco about a type of game where limited instructions were given to the player and figuring out the game was as much a part of the game as the actual mechanics were.
Perhaps this game came out of that idea he had all those years ago as much as it came from a desire to explore games as art. I do think its a very interesting concept and as Rod mentioned my understanding of the game was pretty much as he intended it to be taken. However, if the name of the game hadn't been given, 'The Marriage' I wonder if I would have still interpreted it the way I did.
There were some ideas that I suggested all those years ago which he did not use, weather beacuse they were bad ideas, or perhaps just from being forgotten, but we also discussed this additional mechanic:
I suggested that when the game start up, it simply displays a blank screen. As the user wonders whats going on and start pressing buttons you record their input for a certain length of time and then use the recorded input to influence the variables within the game.
Heres how I see this relating to Rods completed game: Perhaps someone that hammers on the keys rappidly would generate more 'circles' or as I see them 'events', or maybe someone who is computer savy and starts trying to quit out via ESC, or Alt-F4 or ctrl-Alt-DEl, would generate more black circles than the calmer user. Perhaps a user who entered no input at all wouldn't even be able to properly play the game? It all depends on how you equate user events to the conditions of a marriage and I don't know if any one person could really say how temperment could be defined by keystrokes but it is art and as such doesn't need to be accurate, it just needs to generate an emotion.
Anyways I miss drinkin with Rod. Cheers.
Brandon @ Mar 20th 2007 12:19PM
This game is pretty interesting.... its more interesting to play it and figure out its rules and consider them b4 u read the directions. its a nice analogy for man and woman relationships. they talk about games as art on this website i go to... http://www.novusliterae.com
im gonna email them and ask them to review it
rod humble @ Mar 20th 2007 3:53PM
Hi John, thank you so much for your kind comments. Its been very heartening to see gaming critics (in the best sense of the term) really give The Marriage a fair shake. Playing something using game rules that feels closer to music or painting than storytelling takes a bit of a leap of imagination and I am grateful to game players who may not usually be interested in the artsy stuff giving it a try.
Shagittarius. Wow, thank you for reminding me! Its been 12 years already? Ping me :)
lessbiasedthanmost @ Mar 21st 2007 3:08AM
I don't need to play that game to know that video games can be a form of art. I got lost in Shadow of the Colossus watching the scenery go by, if that game's not considered art on any level, then I say we redefine art.
mentis @ Mar 22nd 2007 5:06PM
I'm glad to see Joystiq picking op on this new release that has been circulating for a bit. It's also nice to see such good comments (ignoring the first of course).
I was inspired The Marriage to write up a little piece on art games, which also includes my thoughts on this game.
Also, thank you for commenting here Rod. And thank you for this creation :D.
Here is the link to my humble page...
http://mentisworks.blogspot.com/2007/03/art-games.html
by @ Apr 4th 2007 8:31PM
blah blah blah, nothing to see here folks. If you really want to see art and video games "married" together into the everlasting abyss, this is what it really looks like:
http://c-level.cc/tekken/
(site is no longer maintained so images are broken)